For it introduces players to an organic world and sets up the plot to come (the clash between the dystopian regime of the COMBINE / DR. Specifically, the game’s beginning is noteworthy in this regard. It involves players in a nightmarish gameworld and storyline, but it also sets them at the forefront of the resistance, transforming players into catalysts of change and transformation. Half-Life 2, in other words, is the classical video game dystopia.
In addition, the game took inspiration from George Orwell’s masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and translated the traditional dystopian plot framework of literary works and films to video games. Such narrative devices were quite new and revolutionary in this time and helped immerse players in a frightful and depressing gameworld. This is thanks to use of scripted events and characters that players care about and with whom they engage in conversation (or these characters talk to the main protagonist). Like its predecessor it refrains from telling its story through cut scenes and non-connected gameplay but rather sets players at the forefront of the action.
When Half-Life 2 (Valve) released in 2004, it modernised game and narrative design alike.
0 kommentar(er)
